Liz Waldner
Liz Waldner (born 1956) is an American poet. Life Waldner was born in Cleveland, Ohio and raised in rural Mississippi. She earned a B.A. in philosophy and mathematics from St. John's College, and an M.F.A. from the Iowa Writers' Workshop.Liz Waldner, Academy of American Poets. Poets.org, Web, Dec. 26, 2012. She is the author of 8 poetry collections, including Play (Lightful Press) and Trust (winner of the Cleveland State University Poetry Center Open Competition). Waldner's poem "The Ballad of Barding Gaol", along with others, won the Poetry Society of America's Robert M. Winner Memorial Award, and her poetry has appeared in literary journals and magazines such as Ploughshares, Poetry, New Yorker, American Poetry Review, The Journal, Parnassus West, Cortland Review, Electronic Poetry Review, Colorado Review, Denver Quarterly, New American Writing, http://www.newamericanwriting.com/current.htm Indiana Review, Abacus,http://www.spdbooks.org/Producte/8864040076/abacus-no-76-liz-waldner.aspx and VOLT. Writing "From the title on, reading A Point Is That Which Has No Part is a singular and wonderfully upsetting experience ... the title must be followed by an implied but. A point is that which has no part, but this is a book of and about parts: sexual parts, dramatic parts, that which is parted, and that which is not parted or pared—excess. In bold contrast to the title, this book is brilliantly about not coming to the point." —''American Poet'' "Each lyrical sweep of Waldner's brush pushes us to a new level of meaning. As much can be said with subsequent reading, where the poems morph and unfold and another new intent appears. Impossible to 'get' upon the first reading, we are nevertheless entranced by the mesmerizing voice of the narrator. Intelligent, fantastical and a never-ending delight, Trust draws its reader in with cleverness and wit, and gives us fresh pause to remember what the truest art of poetry is: the ability to undo words, and then undo us with them." —Lisbeth Cheever Gessamen, Commonline "[A Point Is That Which Has No Part] makes the most use of language-at-the-edge. She concentrates on the line between conventional and non-conventional meaning, and spends much of her time poised right on it. She works with tremendous momentum, piling words up into a rush: ‘A panda bear from the county fair is like unto a spelling error’;‘Finis:fate. Ponder, wonder, wander. The river Lysander. Today’s a meander.’There’s a playfulness to the rush, and exuberance that seems always about to burst." —Cole Swensen, Boston Review "Liz Waldner’s Etym(bi)ology is that rare thing: a work that surges with political fervor and also with joy, humor and wild innovation. Unafraid to take on the topical and render it universal, Waldner describes the book, whose poems date from the early 90s, as stemming from her “ about the construction of the concept of selfhood in american culture, and the global effects of u.s. corporate-dominated media” along with her 'abiding interest in the representation of women'." "In Dark Would (as in Dante's) (the missing person) (as in "I came to myself.the right way lost") Liz Waldner deepens and intensifies the concerns of her previous three books: "the habit of invisibility," the healing "by being broken anew," the "visible body", the "anonymous blood" the "how much do I owe you." Longing: see me. Longing: don't. To each its other, and the self somewhere between, or dressed in drag, or "in the wrong skin" or androgynous, or water, or masked—or not. The s/he of it all. Waldner's leaps and shorthand, her fast and sometimes playful associations through rhyme and pun, her willingness to let language carry her into unexpected realms-all this creates a whirlwind that one remains caught in long after one has put the book down. Not a world, but a universe. Waldner's at her best yet—she's flying." —Jane Mead "Liz Waldner's irrepressibly odd lyric sequences leap from Steinian abstraction to sexual comedy in the space of a pun or the dash between parts of a sentence . . . Walder dramatizes her fascination with fragments, impenetrabilities and Renaissance science (e.g., Galileo) not just with fireworks of diction or verbal rambles, but with well-constructed couplets and sentences about the fractured psyche." —Publishers Weekly "By reconstructing the language, line, syntax, and sense of those who came before, this poet creates a new sort of intensely personal poetics." —Camille-Yvette Welsch, ForeWord "Liz Waldner is a poet of high wit, high intelligence, and great musical rigor--she may be our Postmodern Metaphysical poet plummeting deeper and deeper with each book into the questions of self, sexuality, and knowing." —Gillian Conoley "No contemporary poet shows more wild individuality, more gusto (“truth of character…in the highest degree in which the subject is capable”—Hazlitt) than Liz Waldner. She has become one of the most convincing and most inspiring of our poets." —Stephen Burt, Slope Recognition A Point Is That Which Has No Part won the 1999 Iowa Poetry Prize and the Academy of American Poets James Laughlin Award for 2000.Liz Waldner, Quale Press. Web, Dec. 11, 2015. Her collection, Self and Simulacra (2001), won the Beatrice Hawley Award. Her collection, Dark Would (the missing person) (2002), was the winner of the 2002 Contemporary Poetry Series. Other honors include grants from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the Boomerang Foundation, the Gertrude Stein Award for Innovative Poetry and the Barbara Deming Memorial Award,http://www.lib.odu.edu/litfest/20th/waldner.html and fellowships from the Vermont Studio Center, the Djerassi Foundation, Centrum, Hedgebrook, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Villa Montalvo, Fundación Valparaiso and the MacDowell Colony.The MacDowell Colony > Index of MacDowell Fellows Awards * 2004: Northern California Book Awards http://www.poetryflash.org/NCBA.05Poetry.html * 2001: Beatrice Hawley Award * 2000: James Laughlin Award Publications Poetry *''The Way You May''. Elmwood, CA: Potes & Poets Press, 1993. *''Memo (la)mento''. Norman, OK: Texture Press, 1996. *''Homing Devices''. Oakland, CA: O Books, 1998. *''A Point Is That Which Has No Part: Poems''. Iowa City, IA: University of Iowa Press, 2000. *''Call'' (chapbook). San Diego, CA: Meow Press, 2000. *''Read Only Memory''. Los Angeles: Seeing Eye Books, 2000. *''With the Tongues of Angels: Poems'' (chapbook). Camano Island, WA: Owl Creek Press, 2000. *''Self and Simulacra''. Farmington, ME: Alice James Books, 2001. *''Etym(bi)ology: Poems''. Richmond, CA: Omnidawn, 2002. *''Representation'' (chapbook). Florence, MA: Quale Press, 2002. *''Dark Would: The missing person''. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 2002. *''Cylinder and Scry''. Morelia, Michoacan, Mexico: Nihil Obstat Press, 2002. *''Saving the Appearances''. Boise, ID: Ahsahta Press, 2004. *''Trust''. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland State University Poetry Center. 2009. *''Play''. Lightful Press, 2009. *''Her Faithfulness''. Oxford, OH: Miami University Press, 2016. Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.Search results = au:Liz Waldner, WorldCat, OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc. Web, Dec. 11, 2015. See also * List of U.S. poets References Notes External links ;Poems * * * *Liz Waldner profile & 8 poems at the Academy of American Poets. * Liz Waldner at the Poetry Foundation. ;Audio / video * [http://www.lib.odu.edu/litfest/20th/waldner1video.html Video: Liz Waldner Poetry Reading - Part 1 > 20th Annual Literary Festival > October 15, 1997 > Old Dominion University] ;Books *Liz Waldner at Amazon.com ;About *Liz Waldner at Quale Press. Category:American poets Category:Writers from Mississippi Category:People from Mississippi Category:People from Cleveland, Ohio Category:Living people Category:Iowa Writers' Workshop alumni Category:21st-century poets Category:21st-century women writers Category:American women writers Category:English-language poets Category:Poets Category:Women poets Category:1956 births